


Dirty Work

by raendown



Category: Naruto
Genre: Boredom Shenanigans, Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 04:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12927555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: Midnight shifts at the mission desk can get a little boring sometimes. To keep themselves entertained Iruka, Izumo, and Kotetsu turn on the radio and sing along. None of them expected to be caught dancing on top of the desks while they were busting out their dirtiest moves, though.





	Dirty Work

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the second place winner of my 800 Followers Giveaway on tumblr.  
> Song used is Dirty Work by Austin Mahone.

A dry throat was the only thing Iruka got for heaving such a large sigh, eyes half lidded and ponytail drooping out of sheer boredom. He could understand why at least one person should be manning the mission desk at all hours, even the middle of the night, just in case a returning shinobi carried important information or required medical attention. What he didn’t understand was why three of them had to endure this torture together. Surely only one of them was needed and the other two could have been sleeping soundly in their beds? Iruka was shameless enough to admit he would fight both of his friends for the privilege of being one of the two who got to go home right now.

Three in the morning was quite possibly the deadest hour he could think of, caught somewhere in that ephemeral gray zone between late and early. Outside the windows the world was black like ink and as quiet as a graveyard. Inside the mission room was brighter but not much more exciting.

Kotetsu and Iruka sat back to back, using each other to stay upright as they fought the boredom of having nothing to do. All the paperwork they’d thought would keep them busy had been finished by just after midnight, leaving them all sitting there twiddling their thumbs, praying for a miracle. Izumo had disappeared about fifteen minutes ago but neither of them had any energy to go see whether or not he had lied about needing to use the restroom.

“Hey,” Kotetsu murmured. “Are you dead back there?”

“I think so,” Iruka groaned, slumping a little farther back. Kotetsu made a half-hearted noise of protest.

“Don’t knock me out of my chair; I’ll never make it back up off the floor.”

Snorting a little in a brief flash of amusement, Iruka made an attempt to sit up again. It didn’t really work all that well but the effort was there and he figured that was what mattered. Honestly, he thought, if Kotetsu fell over on the floor at least he would find some entertainment in watching his friend flop around for a bit.

Just before he started to seriously consider doing it on purpose the door swung open and Izumo strolled back in to the room with a confident swagger. On his face he wore a look of triumph and over one shoulder he carried what looked like an old style boom box.

“You may now worship the ground I walk on!” he declared, setting his prize down on one of the tables in the far corner. Kotetsu snorted.

“We’ve talked about this, Zoomer. Doesn’t matter what _you_ think, you are not god’s gift to humankind.”

“Fine then. You don’t get to come to my sick dance party!”

Sticking his nose in the air dramatically, Izumo waited until both of them had turned around in their seats to look at him before making an unnecessarily ostentatious presentation of the boom box. When he plugged it in and fiddled with the dials he had to cycle through quite a lot of static before it managed to pick up a local radio station.

“I found this in the storeroom downstairs just collecting dust,” he told them. “And I thought it would be a perfect cure for this unending boredom!”

“You know, you might actually have done something right for a change,” Kotetsu teased his friend.

Iruka covered his laugh with one hand when Izumo squawked indignantly, yelling about ungrateful friends and how no one ever appreciated the efforts he made. While the two of them bickered Iruka heaved himself up to amble across the room and turn up the volume. The crooning strains of a recently released love song filled the air, making him groan. Such an overplayed song.

He refrained from complaining too much, though, even in his head. Any excuse to break up the monotony of this never-ending shift was more than okay in his books. Instead, he sang along under his breath and hopped up to park his butt on the top of the table next to the radio so he could watch Kotetsu poke Izumo in the forehead and grumble something about idiots who couldn’t take a joke with grace. Since their bickering was a more than common sight for anyone who knew them even slightly well, Iruka wasn’t too worried about having to possibly break them up.

As he suspected, they were laughing together again within five minutes. Giving his best friend a playful shove, Izumo turned back to fiddle with the radio some more. Iruka slapped his hand away.

“Hey!” Izumo protested. “I’m the one who found it!”

“And now I’ve commandeered it. Just call me Captain of the Boom Box.”

“Captain Boom Box!” Kotetsu laughed so hard that he tripped over his own feet. “That makes you sound like a really terrible comic book hero whose superpower is just having such a fantastic ass that it distracts all your enemies.”

“That is _obviously_ not how I meant it!” Iruka shouted at him.

Neither of them listened to him. They were too busy howling with laughter and making crude grabbing motions with their hands. He rolled his eyes and turned up the volume again to drown them both out, continuing to turn the knob until the speakers shook the table upon which he was sitting. After the sappy love song finally came to an end the DJ put on something with a more upbeat rhythm and faster lyrics and, as he had hoped it would, the distraction was enough to get his friends’ attention and start them tapping their toes.

“See?” Izumo called above the music. “Sick dance party!”

Without a single care for how ridiculous he looked, the brunet stuck out his butt and wiggled it around, bopping it to the beat and tracing random shapes through the air. Not to be outdone, Kotetsu set his feet apart, put one hand on his hip, and began to point the index finger of his other hand in random directions as though that even counted as a dance move. Iruka watched the both of them with a shaking head. Sometimes he mourned the day he’d made friends with these idiots.

He had to admit though, the beat was sort of catchy. Usually quite a busy guy, he didn’t often have time to just sit down and listen to music. Most of his work required a bit of quiet so that he could concentrate. When he wasn’t doing that he was stuck in a classroom full of screaming children and adding another layer of noise was the absolute last thing he would want to do. Iruka loved his kids, of course he did, but any teacher in the world would sympathize that they were the source of nearly every headache he’d ever had.

Deciding to stay out of the madness his two friends were starting up, Iruka simply wriggled in to a more comfortable position and mentally judged the terribleness of their moves against that one time last year they had all gotten really drunk and crashed Anko’s house for similar shenanigans. Their coordination was only marginally better and he took some imaginary points off for having less alcohol in their system and still only managing a slight improvement.

It only took until the end of one more song before his plan to stay out of things was foiled. Somewhere between dangerously flailing his arms and tossing his head around like he was having a seizure, Kotetsu finally took notice that one of them hadn’t joined in.

“Uh oh! Party pooper spotted!” He was only just audible over the radio but his grin said enough all on its own. “Looks like someone is being booooooriiiiiiiing!”

“I’m not boring, I’m sensible,” Iruka protested. When the two of them began to stalk towards him with evil expressions he shuffled backwards, crawling farther up on to the table.

“You think you can get away from us so easily?” Izumo cackled.

With a quick lunge he made a grab for Iruka’s feet, just barely missing as the other man pulled them up out of reach and tried to crawl away down the length of the table. Kotetsu dodged around to head him off so Iruka scrambled to stand up and jump over their grasping hands. All three of them were laughing as he ran light-footed down the table and leaped over to another one to continue his escape.

At the end of that table he was brought up short when Izumo used a replacement jutsu to switch himself out with a conveniently placed stapler and caught him by both arms. They wrestled playfully, each trying to knock the other sideways.

“Try and escape from dancing with us, will you! I’ll show you! What kind of friend won’t even make a fool of himself with the rest of us?” Iruka was laughing too hard to fight back properly or even answer. He barely noticed when Kotetsu clambered up with them.

“Oh man, he’s got the right idea though! Table dancing!”

Scrunching his face in to what may have been intended as a ‘rock star face’, Kotetsu tilted himself backwards as he busted out his best air guitar, trying hard to match the song. Unfortunately he had no idea how to actually play guitar so it mostly came out as weird twitchy hands movements. Lucky for him they at least knew what he was trying to do.

Still with Iruka in his grip, Izumo started to swing their bodies from side to side wildly in a bastardized waltz of some sort. He even hummed along with the radio just loud enough for his friend to hear, making Iruka laugh and give up at last.

“Fine!” he cried. “Fine, I’ll dance! But if anyone’s eyes start bleeding, I take no responsibility.”

“You’re not _that_ bad, ‘Ru,” Izumo tried to tell him. Kotetsu snorted and paused his guitar playing.

“Remember that one year on Genma’s birthday–”

“No! No one remembers that! Shut up!” Iruka was already red in the face by the time he cut the other off, reaching past Izumo’s shoulder to try and clap a hand over his mouth. Kotetsu only snickered and skipped out of reach.

“I’ll stay shut up as long as you’re dancing!” he crowed, now transitioning in to beating on a set of air drums.

This time it was Iruka who grabbed Izumo’s hands, pulling him back in for more terrible waltzing to the amusement of both the others. Whether they were laughing at the memory of Genma’s birthday or at the look of frantic desperation on his face wasn’t clear. His dance partner was certainly chuckling quite loud but went along with it easily, spinning them down the length of the table and falling in to a dip which Iruka had to hurry to catch him for.

After a few minutes of feeling terribly awkward, Iruka finally started to actually enjoy himself as all mentions of any previous embarrassments were forgotten about. He managed to extract himself from Izumo’s hold and dance on his own for a bit, swaying on the spot and swinging his hips from side to side. Now having hopped over on to another table to have more room for himself, Izumo was trying out some rather fancy footwork. Kotetsu appeared to have moved on to what looked like an air saxophone solo.

The next time the song changed Iruka nearly jumped in fright as the other two whooped with excitement. He watched curiously as Izumo hurried along the tabletops to go turn the music up just that little bit more.

“This is, like, our _theme song_!” he exclaimed.

Having heard the song a few times before, Iruka had to admit that some of the lyrics were fairly apropos for the midnight shifts in the mission room that the three of them seemed to constantly be getting stuck with. Kotetsu left off with whatever instrument he was pretending to play now and began to actually try to dance. Before he could second guess his choice, Iruka found himself joining in.

When the singer picked up the first few lines, all three of them immediately pitched in, singing as terribly all they possibly could and dramatically rolling up their sleeves as the lyrics told them to.

 _Rolling my sleeves up to here_  
_To make you smile ear to ear_  
_Girl I've been hitting that, hitting that graveyard shift_  
_You won't find another one built for this_  
_Dirty work, ooh_  
_Dirty work_

Izumo waggled his eyebrows at the other two suggestively and rolled his hips in a circle. Since they were likely the only people in the village awake other than the gate guards, there was no one here to watch him make a fool of himself. And make a fool of himself he did, getting way too in to the motions and trying to use his arms to frame his body sensually.

On his own table, Kotetsu was only barely doing any better. Iruka would have thought they were both nuts if he wasn’t so busy trying not to lose his balance gyrating.

 _Baby I don't need no help_  
_I'd do it all by myself_  
_Girl I've been putting in, putting in over time_  
_You ain't gotta tell me what's on your mind_  
_Dirty work, ooh_  
_Dirty work_

Any hope of being graceful was thrown out the window as all three of them continued to belt out the lyrics, attempting the use their bodies to pantomime when they could. Where their attempts at sensuality largely failed they made up for it with eager enthusiasm. At least none of them could say they were bored anymore.

Izumo had actually thrown one leg over so that he stood with his feet on either side of the boom box, bow-legged and still trying to grind with an invisible dance partner. Truthfully he looked a little stupid but neither of the other two had any room to say so considering their own moves, so they all simply kept dancing through the bridge of the song.

 _'Cause when you do what you love_  
_You're gonna love what you do_  
_You know I'd do it with love_  
_Each night I'd do it for you_

This was the part of the song that Iruka loved the most, the part he actually identified with. As much as he might gripe and complain when he pulled the crappy shifts, he really did love his job just as much as any loyal shinobi should. He loved working with the children that he taught no matter how many headaches they gave him; he loved greeting weary travelers home no matter how many bad reports they handed in; he loved protecting his village no matter how many scars it left him with.

Filled with a joyous kind of pride, he found himself dancing with just a little more enthusiasm. His arms lifted to make wild shapes in the air around him, stroking down his sides and framing his hips, and when he heard one of the others catcalling him all he did was grin freely.

 _It's the dirty work_  
_Somebody's gotta do it_  
_Dirty work_  
_So we're getting into it_  
_Dirty work_  
_Go and get your body moving_  
_You know it ain't no nine to five_  
_We're going sundown to sunrise_  
_Dirty work_  
_Dirty work_

Spinning himself in a surprisingly well executed circle, Kotetsu tossed his head back and closed his eyes. No doubt all aspects of their jobs could be considered dirty. From blood and dirt to finger paint to honeypot missions, there was no aspect of a shinobi’s life that was guaranteed to stay clean and pure. But there were also very few shinobi who had willingly chosen this lifestyle that would actually complain about it. Well, they might complain actually. They just wouldn’t mean it very much.

In fact, he thought with a smirk, depending on what kind of dirty they were getting down to, they might just like it.

 _I'm filthy down to the core_  
_Leave all your stress at the door_  
_You know you need to stop scrubbing with Mr. Clean_  
_Bring it right here, come next to me_  
_Dirty work, ooh_  
_Dirty work_

Feeling emboldened in a way that was most unusual for him, Iruka crooked a finger across the room at his friend. It took a few moments for Kotetsu to open his eyes again and see that he was being beckoned but when he did he responded with a salacious look that made them both cover a snicker. He did hop back across to the other man’s table, though, and they both made a point of pretending to try and seduce each other with their moves. Izumo wolf whistled at them from over in the corner and it only encouraged them.

When they finally met in the middle Kotetsu dropped down in to a squat to pretend he was worshipping his friend from his knees. Iruka fanned his face with one hand, pretending to be impressed and overwhelmed, nearly ruining the effect with a snort of laughter.

As the bridge began again Kotetsu put his hand on either side of Iruka’s legs and slid them up while he slowly stood, mouthing the lyrics as he inched upwards.

 _'Cause when you do what you love_  
_You're gonna love what you do_  
_You know I'd do it with love_  
_Each night I'd do it for you_

Now with both of them standing Kotetsu wrapped his arms around Iruka almost the same way their other friend had earlier. Only this time instead of trying to waltz he swung their hips back and forth, stepping in to the other man’s personal space like they were dirty dancing in a club. Iruka tried hard to keep his face straight while he attempted to follow along with the movements. He wasn’t generally a nightclub kind of person so he didn’t have a lot of experience with this kind of dancing and it showed a little.

He was far from letting that stop him at this point, however. After letting himself relax enough to get in to it he was having much more fun than he would have thought. That made it easier for him to get closer to Kotetsu, pretending he was some faceless attractive woman, and let his body undulate like he’d seen Anko do a few times.

 _It's the dirty work_  
_Somebody's gotta do it_  
_Dirty work_  
_So we're getting into it_  
_Dirty work_  
_Go and get your body moving_  
_You know it ain't no nine to five_  
_We're going sundown to sunrise_  
_Dirty work_  
_Dirty work_

Watching them from his spot by the radio, Izumo was filled near to bursting with smugness. All signs of boredom were long gone as the three of them partied it up just like he’d been thinking of since the moment he uncovered his treasure in the storeroom. This was quite possibly the best accidental discovery he’d ever made – and that was saying a lot for someone who enjoyed snooping through his friend’s homes as much as he did.

In an effort not to let his friends outdo him, Izumo brought his leg back from where it was still straddled over the boom box and turned around. Bending his knees and dropping his torso forward, he gave his best shot at twerking. He could tell Kotetsu had spotted him when he heard a loud snort of laughter. Just for that he tried a little harder, jiggling his bottom to the beat of the nearly wordless refrain as the song approached its end.

 _Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na_  
_Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na_  
_Dirty work_  
_Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na_  
_Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na_  
_Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na_  
_Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na_  
_Dirty work_  
_Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na_  
_Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na_

Since apparently twerking was a lot harder than he thought, Izumo straightened up and returned to simply dancing as dirty as he could. The next time he went out for a few drinks he made a mental note to tell his female friends how impressed he was that they could do this kind of thing and manage to make it look sexy, not at all awkward. Although, for never having done this before he didn’t think he was doing all _that_ badly.

Kotetsu and Iruka weren’t nearly as terrible as they could have been either. In fact, they actually did look kind of sexy as they moved their hips together and trailed their hands down each other’s arms. If only either one of them was gay he would have made a big deal about how good they looked together.

 _'Cause when you do what you love_  
_You're gonna love what you do_  
_You know I'll do it with love_  
_Every time I'm with you_

As the song passed the bridge and went in to its final chorus, Kotetsu and Iruka separated at last, both of them putting just a little more energy in to their ‘performance’. Standing side by side, they watched each other from the corner of their eyes and tried to move together. When one swayed so did the other, and when one dropped down low the other followed. The compatibility that allowed the three of them to work so well as a cohesive unit in battle came in handy now for dancing as actually they managed to stay reasonably in sync.

Even though he was a bit far away to really make it a group finale, Izumo joined in from the corner anyway and all three of them raised their hands in to the air as they belted out the final lyrics and ground their hips in exaggerated circles.

 _It's the dirty work_  
_Somebody's gotta do it_  
_Dirty work_  
_So we're getting into it_  
_Dirty work_  
_Go and get your body moving_  
_You know it ain't no nine to five_  
_We're going sundown to sunrise_  
_Dirty work_

Together as one all three of them struck as pose on the final note, Iruka with his hands on his hips, Izumo bent forward with his hands on his knees and his ass stuck out, and Kotetsu with one leg raised and his head thrown back. They were going for pinup poses, although how well they managed was anyone’s guess without someone else there to judge them.

The last notes of the song faded seamlessly into the next, some random overplayed boppy tune, and the change broke them all from their moment. Iruka laughed and shoved Kotetsu to knock him over while Izumo moved on to his usual set of dance moves, no longer trying to be sexy but just sticking with what he knew: being dorky.  As Kotetsu struggled to resume his balance and retaliate, Izumo twirled in a whimsical little circle.

And that was when he spotted the figure in the doorway, setting off a short rapid-fire chain of events.

When Izumo shrieked, Iruka looked up and saw the figure by the door as well. Without even seeming to think about it he reached in to his pocket and pulled out a pen, firing it at the radio with all the accuracy of a well-trained chūnin. It struck the power switch direct center, turning it off and plunging the room in to dead silence, then ricocheted in to Izumo’s ankle. As soon as his ankle was struck the man howled and – forgetting he was standing on top of a table – began to hop about in pain. Predictably, this brought him too close to the edge and sent him crashing down to the floor where he lay in an undignified heap.

Frozen in the doorway, Tsunade slowly tilted her head to one side and crossed her arms. Both of her eyebrows were so her on her forehead they were nearly indistinguishable from her hairline. The rest of her face was downright flabbergasted by the sight in front of her.

With sharp cries of shock and embarrassment, both of the remaining two men leaped down from the table, Kotetsu hurrying over to help his friend stand while Iruka tried very hard to convince the ground to open up and swallow him whole. His face was redder than a tomato and neither of the other two were faring much better. Tsunade watched them all scramble around without saying anything at first, obviously searching for words and coming up blank. It took nearly five minutes of cringe-inducing silence before she drew in a breath, paused to shake her head again, and finally spoke.

“I’m not even going to ask,” she muttered.

“There isn’t really a good explanation anyway,” Izumo said to his toes. Kotetsu glared down at the top of his head with a clear direction of blame. Tsunade drummed the fingers of one hand on her opposite arm.

“Am I really paying the three of you to do _this_ in the middle of the night?” All three of them tried to answer at once and she waved a hand, cutting them all off. “No, I don’t want to hear it. Since it doesn’t look like there’s much for you three to be doing, two of you may go home now. Only one of you will need to stay behind for the morning shift to take over. Get a little rest and…perhaps think about using your work spaces more appropriately from now on.”

Hanging their heads with shame, the three men nodded in frantic agreement. No matter how boring any future shifts might be, they wouldn’t be trying anything like this again any time soon. Eyeing them suspiciously, Tsunade turned away and left the room. She saw no need to tell them she’d fallen asleep on her desk after too many glasses of sake, only woken up by the sound of their music reaching her ears several floors above.

As soon as she was gone from the room the trio of chūnin looked at each other, relieved grins forming on all of their faces. Avoiding Tsunade’s infamous temper was sort of akin to staring death in the face and walking away scot-free. Their budding giggles were cut off before it could really start, however, when their Hokage popped her head back in to the room for a moment wearing a grin of her own.

“Oh, and boys? Thanks for the show.”

She gave them a wink and then she was gone again, leaving them all stunned.

Iruka was the first to recover. Without waiting for the matter to be discussed he took off for the exit, very much intending to be one of the two who got to go home early. He could hear his bed calling to him all the way from here, although the sound of it was somewhat drowned out by the fight that instantly broke out behind him when the same thought finally occurred to both Kotetsu and Izumo at the same time. Iruka kept going and didn’t look back.

Someone had to do the dirty work but tonight it would not be him.


End file.
